Being An Ashley
by CandC1988
Summary: Ashley A. reflects on being a member of the Ashleys.


Disclaimer: I do not own Recess or any of its characters.

Author's Note: I know, I know. Lots of Recess one-shots all at once, but ideas just keep coming to me! And I also got this really good idea for a story involving one of the Ashley's.

Being An Ashley

"Being an Ashley is not as easy as it looks," I used to haughtily say as the other kids would tease us, "I mean, you have to be the best of the best. The prettiest, well, with this group, it wasn't as hard as it might seem. You have to be the richest, which, also isn't that hard. You have to be the most sophisticated. Basically, none of you girls could be an Ashley because you don't have what it takes. Only four of us have what it takes, myself, Ashley B., Ashley Q., and Ashley T. So, please run along now and leave us to our business."

The girls would shake their heads before running away and leaving us with our tire clubhouse. We knew it was only because they secretly wanted to be like us. After all, we truly were the best of the best.

I never would have thought that I would want to stop being an Ashley. I mean, these plans kept running through my head of us running the spirit squad and school in high school, of us joining the best sorority in college, and all of us marrying rich men and having kids that could all be friends. That was every Ashley's dream.

Maybe that was part of the reason I didn't want to be known as part of the "Ashley's" anymore. We were just like clones of each other, thinking and saying the same things all the time. I just wanted to be Ashley A., or even Armbruster like Ashley Spinelli was called by her last name. Which seemed silly, because I always fathomed myself to be the leader of the Ashley's. I was prettier, richer, and had more material items, I mean, hello, my name even came first in alphabetical order. So, if I was the leader of the Ashley's, were the other three just clones of me?

Maybe the reason I didn't want to be an Ashley anymore was because of the time I saw Gretchen Grundler crying after we teased her. I had seen plenty of people cry after we teased them, including Gretchen on several occasions, but this time was different, Gretchen seemed so broken. And whenever I approached her to see if she was okay (I'm not sure what possessed me to do that), she looked up at me with cold eyes and simply asked if I was back to tease her some more. Why did that affect me so much? I still didn't know ... I just knew that it did.

Maybe the reason I didn't want to be an Ashley anymore was because I found something else I was good at. The first time I got an A on an English paper, I was impressed with myself. I had never done that well in school before, I never had any reason to do that well in school because I knew I was going to marry someone rich. But, getting an A on that paper made me see things in a whole new light. I could write better than I had thought possible, even better than Gretchen Grundler herself. After that, I began to get A after A on English papers, claiming to the Ashley's it was only because I wanted to keep up the appearance of being the absolute best. And they believed me.

Most of all though, I think I saw how unhappy my mother was. She was miserable staying at home alone, shopping, getting her nails done, and bossing people around. My father hardly ever came home for longer than an hour at a time before claiming he had to go back to the office. She was so devastated when he would leave. But, worse than that, she was so ... bored. She would examine her fingernails for a long period of time, pretending that she had something to do, but, really, she was bored. I didn't know if I could handle being bored everyday of my life.

But, I knew that I would be an Ashley forever. I couldn't stop being their friend. They were the best friends I had ever known, the only friends I had ever known. I was destined to be an Ashley forever.

"Being an Ashley is not as easy as it looks," I say in my head to people now as I walk down the high school hallways with the other Ashley's and they all stare at us, "you have to be the best at hiding who you really are. You have to be the best at pretending you are something you are not. You have to be the best at flirting with guys you don't really care about. See, you have to be the best of the best. Or, the most fake."

But, its all part of being an Ashley.


End file.
